Ex-minister sues Vatican panelist for 'gay' tweet

14/08/2013

Called senior cardinal 'corrupt', Tremonti 'gay'

(By Christopher Livesay)
Vatican City, August 14 - A former Italian economy
minister is suing a member of the new Vatican financial reform
panel and newspaper editors over allegations that he is gay and
that a senior Vatican cardinal is corrupt.
"I am taking legal action against (Francesca) Immacolata
Chaouqui as well as (newspaper) employees and publishers," said
Giulio Tremonti, who served under three-time premier Silvio
Berlusconi.
Tremonti told ANSA that one of those being sued is
Alessandro Sallusti, editor of Il Giornale, the daily that
printed the allegations.
The Vatican has reportedly opened a probe into the hiring
of Chaouqui, 30, who made headlines last month when she became
the only woman and only Italian named to an eight-member
pontifical commission set up to overhaul the Vatican's financial
administration.
Before her appointment, the former Ernst & Young
communications manager made prolific Twitter posts about affairs
at the Holy See.
Among the most incendiary was a March tweet in which she
called Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
"corrupt" and alleged he was involved in shady business affairs
with an unidentified Italian company.
In a February post she fueled rumors that then pope
Benedict XVI was suffering from cancer in the run-up to his
abdication:
"I confirm: the pope has been suffering from leukaemia for
more than a year".
The former economy minister's charges against her stem from
this tweet, which was subsequently published in Il Giornale:
"Tremonti held an account with the (Vatican Bank). They
shut it down when they found out he is gay".
Tremonti indicated Wednesday he was especially offended by
being associated with corruption and the so-called 'Gay lobby'
Pope Francis said existed in and around the Vatican's affairs
earlier this summer.
"Given that I have absolutely nothing to do with (either),
I'm sure to win in court," he said.
Chaouqui, whose father is French of Moroccan origin, also
hinted she was close to journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, famous for
publishing leaked documents from Benedict's butler, arrested
last year in the Vatileaks scandal.
Her account has since been shut down.
Chaouqui claims the messages were tweeted by other people
who had access to her account and that circulated images of the
tweets had been tampered with.
"I'm not worried because the Holy Father is not worried,"
she said in a statement "approved by Vatican Spokesman Federico
Lombardi".
Bertone is expected to broach the issue with Francis in a
lunch meeting Thursday at the pontifical summer residence of
Castel Gandolfo.